When Shadow Reigns
by WafflesRox
Summary: The Capitol was overthrown in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. We all know that. But when it is recaptured by the surviving game makers, everything gets worse in the districts. This FanFiction is about two teenagers from District 7 who are sent to the Hunger Games. They try not to but end up re-enacting a very special Hunger Games that took place seven years ago.


Chapter One

Vine's POV

Even though I am nineteen and will not be in danger of going into the games, I am worried about my sister. Jade is fifteen and, due to tesserae, her name will be entered twelve times. Even though the odds are mostly in her favor, because of all of the one hundred seventeen girl's names that had been entered into District 7's ball, only about ten percent of them are hers, she still has a largish chance, compared to some of the other girls, of getting called up, and, because I am above the allowed age, the chances of someone volunteering for her are incredibly slim.

I watch her come outside of the house. Her beautiful reddish-brown hair is brushed out neatly and pulled back in a hairband so large that the resultant style is really more of a flattened ponytail than an attempt to keep the hair out of her eyes. She is wearing a bronze hair clip that brings out the flecks of gold in her dark green eyes. Her freshly washed ivory skin seems luminescent in the light of the sun, and her green sundress appears to shimmer with it. The only thing that truly hints at our family's poorness is her bare feet, because we cannot afford to get us all shoes, and she prefers feeling fresh soil beneath her feet anyway.

She glances at me and shoots me a half smile. I can tell she is nervous. She walks ahead of me, and I walk ahead of Father. I like the age sorting rule just as much as they do, but at least we get to be close for part of the ceremony.

It is over too soon. Father stays with me, but the peacekeepers take Jade away from me. I have always hated how they sorted us, but I have learned to live with it and normally just find her in the crowd and keep eye contact with her the whole time. Now, though, she is in front of us, and because of the law that decrees we must stand facing the stage, we are hopelessly separated.

I see my best friend, Millicent, walking with her family. She is a year younger than me, so is still in danger of being reaped. Because of tesserae, her name will have been

entered forty-two times. The odds are not exactly in her favor.

Seven's announcer, Floria Pearl, stands up out of her chair. She is short and stout, with blue and silver hair that goes down to her waist and falls over her face on one side and drops just above her chin and is tucked behind her ear on the other. She is wearing fake eyelashes so long that it's a wonder they don't tangle themselves when she blinks. Her annoying Capitol accent is made even more obnoxious by her super chirpy voice, with which she cheerily presents the beginning of the hunger games for Seven, the happily announces "Ladies first!"

As she plunges her hand into the large glass bowl, I can't help whispering to myself, "Please not Milly, please not Milly, please not Milly."

But the name she calls isn't Millicent Cloudsdale. It isn't her sister, Sarah, who is another good friend of mine. It isn't even Ginger Elmnydle, whose name was entered a total of fifty-eight times.

The name on the slip of paper in Flora's hand, as she excitedly announces, is Jade Eyvie.

Jade's POV

At first, I stand, horrified, trying desperately to not believe what I know is definitely what Flora just said. Not me. No, please, no...

"Jade? Don't be shy, dear! Come up, come up!" chirps that horrible voice.

Slowly, the crowd parts in front of me. I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch my arm, to make sure that this is all real, it's not just a nightmare before the actual reaping.

Ouch! Okay, this is real. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever about that. I open my eyes, take a deep breath, and begin to walk slowly.

"I'm not scared... I'm not scared... I'm not scared... I'm not scared..." I whisper to myself, even though it doesn't help. Each time I say it, I become more terrified, so eventually I give up.

I have reached the stage now, and I feel everyone looking at me. I feel myself blush as I look away.

It seems that Flora takes forever to call the boy's name, even though it probably was really only a couple of seconds. It's some boy who's name I do not recognize, but he has barely reached the stage when someone in the crowd shrieks "I VOLUNTEER! I VOLUNTEER!"

I am still observing my feet, but there is a loud scream that starts near the back of the crowd if children and swiftly picks up in a line coming closer to the stage. Realizing people are being pushed and someone is coming through the crowd, I look up.

What I see is a tanned boy, sixteen years old, with short black hair and chocolate brown eyes, and he is pushing through the crowd, running towards the stage.

No. No, not him, I think and he reaches the stage.

"Hello, dear!" says Flora in her annoying accent, "And what may your name be?"

"James Broune." He replies in his wonderful, amazing, kind, soft voice.

He glances at me then quickly looks away, and it makes my heart flutter. Why him? Why did it have to be him?

Yes, I know him. Boy, do I know him. I have studied and remembered every inch of his perfect face, memorized every detail of his handsome body. I know and cherish things about him most people would think of as unimportant, like the fact that one of his eyes is blind, or that he has a very slight overbite. James is the boy I have had a crush on since the war. Of course I know him. And hate him for volunteering.

Chapter 2

James' POV

I recognize her. She's Jade, one of my best friends from school- back when there was school.

Six years ago, after President Coin was murdered and the rebels had taken over Panem, the remaining members of the Capitol took out what were literally called the "Big Guns". Basically, the threatened the new congress with nukes. The message they sent to them was "Give us back Panem, or prepare for another war. The congress also had nukes, of course, but still they were forced to either give in or cause extinction of humankind. They didn't choose the latter, of course, and the old Capitol killed all of them, as well as all of the remaining hunger games victors. They shut down all of the schools, setting a law that all people over the age of ten had to work. Everyone had a choice of either working in the District's main industry or opening some sort of shop.

Normally I wouldn't be able to look at her, but Flora forces us to shake hands. Then, we are hurried into special rooms in the Justice Building

for goodbyes.

Mother is the first one to come in. She doesn't say much, just starts crying and doesn't stop. I manage to make her promise that no matter what happens, she had to keep on going. She nods her head in reply then hurries out, sobbing loudly.

Next is Charcoal Coldoke, which surprises me because we hardly even know each other. Only an occasional hello, and we talked together if we didn't have anything else to do. I didn't even know his favorite color.

"Why did you volunteer for me?" he demands.

"Because I couldn't bear to see you go." If only I was a better liar.

"Not likely. We aren't even friends."

"Oh, you hurt my feelings!" I frown and look at my knees, which makes him smile a bit.

"Seriously, though, why did you volunteer for me?" he is back to the point without a moments hesitation, without a hint of the smile he just had on his face. "Was it because if the girl?"

I try to answer, but my mouth is dry.

A friendly smirk comes across his face. "Jade and James, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

"Shut up," I return, having found my voice again. I give him a half-hearted shove.

He laughs then leaves the room. I didn't have a chance to tell him that we were just friends. He was already out the door.

Anyway, even if I actually _did_ like her, everyone _knows_ that we wouldn't have a chance together. Last time two people won the hunger games was Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. And look how well that turned out.

Jade's POV

Flora is shoving me and James into the train, reminding us that "We're on a schedule!"

I try not to look at James because I know if I do I would end up blushing like an idiot. However, even that is made hard with Flora sitting us down next to each other in a small corner of the lounge department. She sits across from us in a recliner, glances up at us, mumbles something like "Oh, that's cute." then calls loudly "MARGARITA! COLLIN! COME HERE, DEARS!"

Margarita and Collin are the victors of Seven. Margarita won the first game after the war, Collin the most recent one. He is nineteen, just like my sister. I have heard rumors that he has an eye on her.

"Okay!" chirps Flora when they come in. "Margarita will be Jade's mentor, Collin will be Jameseses? Jameseseses... Jameseseseseses..."

"James's." I suggest.

"Um... yes. And now for you to meet your stylists and prep team..."

The door on the far wall slides open, and eight Capitol people come in.

The first two look similar to each other. The taller one, a man, is probably about six foot three with short brown hair decorated with flecks of gold. He has gold eyeliner, lipstick, floral tattoos, and glitter caked onto his face. He is wearing a tuxedo and fancy black dress shoes. His skin is black.

The other, a woman, also black, has long, fluffy, wavy brown hair with flecks of gold glitter in it. She has gold lipstick and the slightest bit of golden eyeshadow. She has floral tattoos similar to his on her hands. She is wearing a headband with a fake tiny top hat coming out of a corner and a black dress that seems to be tailored to outline the shape of her body, black designer shoes, sparkly gold earrings, and, to finish it all off, a beautiful belt that looks like it is made out of pure gold.

"Jade, Aurium will be your stylist."

The beautiful lady smiles and waves. I smile back. I like her already.

"And that means that, James, you'll have-"

"Rutilius. He's been the Seven stylist for a while." finishes James. "Pleased to meet you."

The tall man nods in reply. But if he is really like Aurium, he is probably amazing once you get to know him.

Flora turns to the stylists without bothering to introduce the prep teams. "Okay, you know the drill. Get the ready for tonight!"

The stylists nod. Aurium motions for me to stand up, so I do, then follow her through the door opposite the one she came through. We go through nine compartments then reach the caboose, which apparently is the girls' work area.

"Up to the second level. Get undressed and sit in the big black chair that's lifted on that pole. Your prep team will meet you there."

I walk up the staircase and find myself in a room with a chair just like the one my stylist had described, a bathtub, something like a bed with a large plastic ring at the top, lots of shelves overflowing with various beauty products, an extremely large marble vanity with many drawers, as well as walls covered with many, many mirrors. I resist the temptation to open the drawers and undress then sit in the chair like I have been instructed.

The prep team enters. Their wigs, outfits, and heavy makeup makes them look like cartoon characters rather than human beings. They are all women, all clearly wearing wigs, and sucking in there stomaches even though they are pretending not to.

"Oh my! Good gracious, we have SO much work to do!" says the first, a plump woman with bright purple curls, matching lipstick, and golden tiger stripe tattoos on her face, squeals in her annoying accent.

"Well, at least we only need to get her to beauty base zero." says another, who's wig is straightened out and dyed a shade of yellow so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it, and she has eye contacts that turn her irises the same color.

"Well, thank goodness for that!" sighs the first.

"Dorus! You are so rude! Leave the girl be, she doesn't have showers every day and go to get her nails done once a week!"

"She could at least have taken better care if herself, Belluma!" scoffs the yellow woman.

"You too, Sinapius! She was born in the districts! Cut the girl some slack!"

I smile weekly. It was good to know that some of the members of the Capitol didn't talk about us as if we were something their pets had left on the sidewalk.


End file.
